Order of Merit in the context of "E. M. Forster"

The University of Manitoba (U of M, UManitoba, or UM) is a public research university in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. Founded in 1877, it is the first university in Western Canada. Both by total student enrolment and campus area, the University of Manitoba is the largest university in the province of Manitoba. Its main campus is located in the Fort Garry neighbourhood of Winnipeg, with other campuses throughout the city: the Bannatyne Campus, the James W. Burns Executive Education Centre, the William Norrie Centre, and the French-language affiliate, Université de Saint-Boniface in the Saint Boniface ward.

Research at the university contributed to the creation of canola oil in the 1970s. Likewise, University of Manitoba alumni include Nobel Prize recipients, Academy Award winners, Order of Merit recipients, and Olympic medalists. As of 2019, there have been 99 Rhodes Scholarship recipients from the University of Manitoba, more than that of any other university in western Canada.

Sir Charles Algernon Parsons (13 June 1854 – 11 February 1931) was an Anglo-Irish mechanical engineer and inventor who designed the modern steam turbine in 1884. His invention revolutionised marine propulsion, and he was also the founder of C. A. Parsons and Company. He worked as an engineer on dynamo and turbine design, and power generation, with great influence in the naval and electrical engineering fields. He also helped develop optical equipment for searchlights and telescopes. Parsons received the Franklin Medal in 1920, the Faraday Medal in 1923, and the Copley Medal in 1928 for his work, as well as the Engineering Heritage Awards posthumously in 1995.

His inventions and developments were used in many appliances during the early 20th century, including both naval and optical devices. He was elected to the Royal Society in 1898, and he served as the president of the British Association between 1916 and 1919. For his lasting contributions, Parsons was knighted in 1911, and he became a member of the Order of Merit in 1927. He additionally received the Bessemer Gold Medal in 1929.

The Order of Canada (French: Ordre du Canada) is a Canadian national order and the second-highest honour for merit in the system of orders, decorations, and medals of Canada, after the Order of Merit.

To coincide with the centennial of Canadian Confederation, the three-tiered order was established in 1967 as a fellowship recognizing the outstanding merit or distinguished service of Canadians who make a major difference to Canada through lifelong contributions in every field of endeavour, as well as efforts by non-Canadians who have made the world better by their actions. Membership is accorded to those who exemplify the order's Latin motto, desiderantes meliorem patriam, meaning "they desire a better country", a phrase taken from Hebrews 11:16. The three tiers of the order are Companion, Officer and Member. Specific people may be given extraordinary membership and deserving non-Canadians may receive honorary appointment into each grade.

George Frederic Watts OM RA (23 February 1817 – 1 July 1904) was a British painter and sculptor associated with the Symbolist movement. Watts became famous in his lifetime for his allegorical works, such as Hope and Love and Life. These paintings were intended to form part of an epic symbolic cycle called the "House of Life", in which the emotions and aspirations of life would all be represented in a universal symbolic language.

Martin Litchfield West, OM, FBA (23 September 1937 – 13 July 2015) was a British philologist and classical scholar. In recognition of his contribution to scholarship, he was appointed to the Order of Merit in 2014.

West wrote on ancient Greek music, Greek tragedy, Greek lyric poetry, the relations between Greece and the ancient Near East, and the connection between shamanism and early ancient Greek religion, including the Orphic tradition. This work stems from material in Akkadian, Phoenician, Hebrew, Hittite, and Ugaritic, as well as Greek and Latin. West also studied the reconstitution of Indo-European mythology and poetry and its influence on Ancient Greece, notably in the 2007 book Indo-European Poetry and Myth (IEPM).

William Holman Hunt OM (2 April 1827 – 7 September 1910) was an English painter and one of the founders of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. His paintings were notable for their great attention to detail, vivid colour, and elaborate symbolism. These features were influenced by the writings of John Ruskin and Thomas Carlyle, according to whom the world itself should be read as a system of visual signs. For Hunt it was the duty of the artist to reveal the correspondence between sign and fact. Of all the members of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, Hunt remained most true to their ideals throughout his career. He was always keen to maximise the popular appeal and public visibility of his works.

Sir James Matthew Barrie, 1st Baronet, OM (/ˈbæri/; 9 May 1860 – 19 June 1937) was a Scottish novelist and playwright, best remembered as the creator of Peter Pan. He was born and educated in Scotland and then moved to London, where he wrote several successful novels and plays. There he met the Llewelyn Davies boys, who inspired him to write about a baby boy who has magical adventures in Kensington Gardens (first included in Barrie's 1902 adult novel The Little White Bird), then to write Peter Pan, or The Boy Who Wouldn't Grow Up, a 1904 West End "fairy play" about an ageless boy and an ordinary girl named Wendy who have adventures in the fantasy setting of Neverland.

Although he continued to write successfully, Peter Pan overshadowed his other work, and is credited with popularising the name Wendy. Barrie unofficially adopted the Davies boys following the deaths of their parents. Barrie was made a baronet by George V on 14 June 1913, and a member of the Order of Merit in the 1922 New Year Honours. Before his death, he gave the rights to the Peter Pan works to Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children in London, which continues to benefit from them.